Indian Country Today Media Network.com - Steven Newcombhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/tags/steven-newcomb
en‘Rekindling Embers of Sovereignty that Long Ago Grew Cold’http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/31/rekindling-embers-sovereignty-long-ago-grew-cold
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">When Cristobal Colón made landfall on a sandy beach in the Caribbean, he planted the royal standards (flags) of Castile and Aragon and performed a ceremonial act of “discovery and possession.” The “standards” he planted in the soil were physical flags, but those flags also symbolized Christendom’s ideas and </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">standards of judgment </em><span style="line-height:1.6em;">which Colón and other invaders intended to impose on the newly “discovered” land, and on the free and independent non-Christian nations and peoples already existing here.</span></p>
<p>In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court extended Christendom’s idea of “standards” in the case <em>City of Sherrill</em> v. <em>Oneida Indian Nation of New York</em> when it wrote: “[We] hold that ‘standards of federal Indian law and federal equity practice’ preclude the Tribe [the Oneida Indian Nation] from rekindling embers of sovereignty that long ago grew cold.” A traditional council fire was the background frame of reference for the Court’s phrase “rekindling embers of sovereignty,” and “a dying fire” is the frame of reference for the term “embers.” The Court’s use of the word “embers” and its allusion to the idea of a “dying fire,” calls to mind a fire “going out” or being “extinguished.” Similar imagery is at play when an “aboriginal title” of Indian “occupancy” is said to have been “extinguished.” The two senses of “extinguishment” are related because once aboriginal title was said to be “extinguished,” it generally followed that the council fire of the Original Nation was no longer to be found on that land because the people had been removed from their traditional territory.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s use of the words “rekindling” and “embers” evokes an idealized mental image of an Original Nation’s Council Fire. It implies a backstory that, by implication, has the Supreme Court writing the obituary of the Oneida Nation, and, by extension, for every one of our Original Nations. The Court seems to be saying :</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">Once upon a time, your people had a fully ignited fire of sovereignty as a free and independent nation, but our ancestors succeeded in putting out that fire. They did so by extinguishing it to the point that only the embers of your dying council fire remained. Then, after a time, even those embers grew cold as the remaining heat of your council fire gradually subsided and went out. Our ancestors successfully extinguished your fire of national sovereignty, and they built an idea-system called federal Indian law which was designed to make it impossible for your nation to ever reignite your council fire of sovereignty as an independent nation or people. We inherited from our predecessors that federal Indian law idea-system and its standards and we fully intend to continue using it against you.</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">From one generation to the next, the colonizing nations of Christendom passed the dominating ideas, values, and standards of judgement that they purported to “plant” in the soil of our original nations’ territories. Today the United States continue to impose those dominating ideas, values, and standards of judgment upon our original nations and peoples. Behind the Court’s usage rests a key presumption: Our original free nations are now regarded by the United States as being <em>subject</em> <em>to</em> the mental processes (ideas and standards of judgment) of the U.S. government as a whole, and of the U.S. Supreme Court in particular. It is by means of those mental processes (in the form of ideas and court rulings) that the United States purports to “hold” our nations captive, and to “hold” to the judgment that the United States has successfully “extinguished” our council fires of national independence.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court also used the doctrine of discovery as the context for what it said about the “embers of sovereignty” in <em>City of Sherrill</em>. Footnote number one reads: “Under the ‘doctrine of discovery,’. . . ‘fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign.” The footnote continues: “first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States.” Justice Ginsberg drew this language from the 1974 decision <em>Oneida Indian Nation </em>v. <em>County of Oneida </em>(414 U.S. 661), and the wording from the 1974 ruling states:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">It very early became accepted doctrine in this Court that, although fee title to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign -- first the discovering European nation and later the original States and the United States -- a right of occupancy in the Indian tribes was nevertheless recognized.</p>
<p>In the 1974 Oneida Nation ruling that Justice Ginsberg used in <em>Sherrill</em>, the Supreme Court went on to point out that in <em>United States</em> v. <em>Santa Fe Railroad Company</em> (1941), it had unanimously and “succinctly summarized the essence of past cases in relevant respects.” In <em>Santa Fe Railroad</em> the Court stated:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">‘Unquestionably it has been the policy of the Federal Government from the beginning to respect the Indian right of occupancy, which could only be interfered with or determined by the United States.' <em>Cramer v. United States,</em> <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/us/261/219/case.html#227" target="_blank">261 U. S. 227</a>. This policy was first recognized in <em>Johnson </em>v. <em>M’Intosh,</em> 8 Wheat. 543, and has been repeatedly reaffirmed. </p>
<p>So, Justice Ginsberg’s reliance on the doctrine of discovery in <em>City of Sherrill</em> v. <em>Oneida Indian Nation of New York</em> leads us directly to the 1823 Supreme Court ruling <em>Johnson &amp; Graham’s Lessee </em>v. <em>M’Intosh</em>. That Supreme Court decision traces back to the ceremonial planting of Christian “standards” in the soil of our nations, and serves as the cornerstone of the “standards of federal Indian law” that Justice Ginsberg, for a majority of the Court, make it impossible for the Oneida Indian Nation, and, by implication, any other original nation to rekindle its fire of independence.</p>
<p>In other words, the “standards of federal Indian law” to which Justice Ginsberg refers in <em>City of Sherrill</em>, are traced to what Chief Justice Marshall called “The right of discovery” in <em>Johnson </em>v. <em>M’Intosh</em>. The Supreme Court said the claimed “right of discovery” (and “ultimate dominion”) was exclusive to Christian people when the Court said it was a right “confined to countries then unknown to all Christian people.”Embedded in the decision <em>City of Sherrill</em> v. <em>Oneida Indian Nation of New York</em> is the idea that the “standards” of Christian domination (which Marshall termed “ascendancy”) preclude our Original Nations of the continent from rekindling their Council Fires of independence and preclude them from being recognized as nations entitled to live and exist free and independent of the claimed right of Christian domination. The concepts, metaphors, and categories dreamed up by the U.S. Supreme Court, regarding rights of “ascendency” and “ultimate dominion” (domination) need to be rejected, repudiated and disestablished. At a minimum, as part of our work to emphasize and actualize the right of our nations to live free from all forms of domination, we need to be developing powerful arguments against such false claims.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008). He is a Producer of the documentary movie “The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code,” Directed and Produced by Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota), with narration by Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree).</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">‘Rekindling Embers of Sovereignty&#039;</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/land" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Land</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/sovereignty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sovereignty</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/cristobal-colon" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cristobal Colón</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/christopher-columbus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christopher Columbus</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/us-supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">U.S. Supreme Court</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Fri, 31 Jul 2015 12:00:47 +0000mazecyrus161236 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/31/rekindling-embers-sovereignty-long-ago-grew-cold#commentsQuestion for Christians: Will Saying Sorry Be Enough?http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/29/question-christians-will-saying-sorry-be-enough
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Pope Francis' July 9, 2015, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/world/americas/pope-francis-bolivia-catholic-church-apology.html" style="line-height:1.6em;" target="_blank">request </a><span style="line-height:1.6em;">for "forgiveness" for "crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America" indicates how far and fast the discussion of Christian complicity in colonial domination has moved —spurred by mounting critique of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.</span></p>
<p>In 1993, when Birgil Kills Straight, Steven Newcomb, and Maria Braveheart Jordan sent an "<a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/10/18/1993-open-letter-pope-john-paul-ii" target="_blank">open letter</a>" to Pope John Paul II calling for revocation of a 500-year old papal bull underlying the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, their move seemed quixotic. Many people acted as if colonial-era documents were somehow irrelevant in today's world.</p>
<p>Now, about a generation later, revocation of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery has developed from a quixotic project into a widely understood target in the movement to free Native peoples from continuing effects and programs of colonial domination. In the U.S., for example, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery underpins federal Indian law to this day.</p>
<p>Pope Francis did not mention the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, but he did go further than Pope John Paul II, whose "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/13/catholicism.religion" target="_blank">apology</a>" in the year 2000 blamed individuals, rather than the church itself, for violence against Native peoples and others. Francis asked forgiveness "for the offenses of the Church herself." Notice, too, that Francis spoke of "crimes"; he did not limit himself to the softer rhetoric of "sin."</p>
<p>Pope Francis also contributed to an important clarification about the role of church doctrine in colonization when he referred to the "so-called conquest" of America. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in its 1823 decision, <em>Johnson v. McIntosh</em>, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery serves as a "pretension" of conquest. Whereas actual conquest carries legal implications of a justifiable dominance, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery is justifiable only to those who place religious discrimination against non-Christian “heathens” at the foundation of law.</p>
<p>According to the New York Times, Francis' "apology for the church’s complicity in the colonialist era received an immediate roar from the crowd," which was made up of "nearly 2,000 social activists, farmers, trash workers and neighborhood activists" in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.</p>
<p>The roar from the crowd echoes events of the Tupac Amaru rebellion against Spanish rule in Peru more than 200 years ago. But it leaves questions about what will happen next.</p>
<p>How will Native people who consider themselves Christian respond to the critique of Christian colonial domination? Will they rest satisfied with a papal request for forgiveness? Or will they insist that a request for forgiveness must be followed by action demonstrating real change, such as a papal revocation of the offending papal decrees?</p>
<p>Many people have criticized the planned canonization of Junipero Serra, the 18<sup>th</sup> century monk who was a driving force in Spanish colonization on the west coast of North America. Serra organized the effort of temporal and spiritual conquest of Native peoples in "New Spain." He was responsible for much evangelical violence in the name of Christ as he corralled forced Native labor to fill Spanish demands for tribute and treasure.</p>
<p>Will Christian Natives be able to see that Junipero Serra cannot be a "saint" if what he did was a "crime"? Will Christian Natives raise their voices to challenge the canonization and to see "sainthood" for Serra as a continuation of the very acts for which Francis and other popes have asked forgiveness?</p>
<p>Will more Christian Natives call on the church to take the next steps after requesting forgiveness and officially revoke the 500-year old papal bulls that authorized violence and domination against Native peoples?</p>
<p>The history of Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonialism in South America leaves doubt about the ability of Native peoples to overcome allegiance to the church in their struggle for self-determination.</p>
<p>When Tupac Amaru began his campaign against Spanish rule in 18<sup>th</sup> century Peru, he believed the church would support his movement to free Incan peoples from the oppression of colonial officials and landowners, who kept whole communities of Native peoples in slave conditions. Tupac Amaru's initial demands for an end to Spanish domination were often made from the steps of churches, where he called upon his followers to respect priests while challenging secular authorities.</p>
<p>Despite the willingness of some local priests to work with Incan leaders, the church hierarchy took an antagonistic role. Bishop Moscoso of Cuzco ordered priests to preach against Native forces. Moscoso took a leading role in assisting the Spanish military response to the rebellion. He excommunicated Tupac Amaru, in an effort to portray him as a heathen rather than a hero.</p>
<p>When Tupac Amaru realized the highest church authorities were not sympathetic and were plotting with secular officials to destroy the Incan rebellion, he was bewildered. The excommunication angered and dismayed him as it undermined support among Natives, who distanced themselves from the rebellion and even joined Spanish militias.</p>
<p>In a recent book—"The Tupac Amaru rebellion"—author Charles F. Walker writes: "Highly religious, the…rebel leaders could not conceive of a world without the Church and could not come up with an effective plan to silence" church leaders like Bishop Moscoso.</p>
<p>Walker writes: "the greatest, or at least most unexpected, challenge faced by the rebel leaders [was] how to reconcile their religiosity…with extensive counterrevolutionary efforts by…the Church…."</p>
<p>Today, critics of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery are in the ascendant, reaching even the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, whose "<a href="http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N14/241/84/PDF/N1424184.pdf?OpenElement" target="_blank">Study </a>on the impacts of the Doctrine of Discovery" calls for "mechanisms, processes and instruments of redress" for Indigenous Peoples.</p>
<p>As Newcomb <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/13/pope-francis-takes-first-step-toward-revoking-papal-bulls" target="_self">wrote</a>, Pope Francis "has taken an important first step toward revoking the papal bulls of empire and domination." Newcomb deserves enormous credit for helping lay the groundwork for that step. He followed his role as co-author of the 1993 "open letter" with a 2008 <a href="http://www.fulcrum-books.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=5923" target="_blank">book</a>, <em>Pagans in the Promised Land</em>, laying bare the ongoing Christian religious foundation of U.S. federal Indian law.</p>
<p>Pope Francis seems aware of the unsustainability—or at least unacceptability—of regimes based on the pattern of Christian domination. It remains to be seen whether the church—its leaders and its lay members—are up to the task of building a world without such patterns.</p>
<p><em>Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. He was Staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services, 1968-1970, in Shiprock. He taught Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1970-2002. He is a consulting attorney on indigenous issues.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Christians: Will Saying Sorry Be Enough?</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/spirituality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Spirituality</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Peter d&#039;Errico</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/peter-derrico" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Peter d&#039;Errico</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/spirituality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Spirituality</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/pope-john-paul-ii" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Pope John Paul II</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/doctrine-christian-discovery" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Doctrine of Christian Discovery</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/peter-d%27errico" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Peter d&#039;Errico</a></div></div></div>Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:00:52 +0000mazecyrus161201 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/29/question-christians-will-saying-sorry-be-enough#commentsPope Francis Takes a First Step Toward Revoking the Papal Bullshttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/13/pope-francis-takes-first-step-toward-revoking-papal-bulls
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>On July 9 the Associated Press reported that while visiting La Paz, Bolivia, “Pope Francis apologized…for the sins, offenses and crimes committed by the Catholic Church against indigenous peoples during the colonial-era conquest of the Americas,” (story by Nicole Winfield and Frank Bajak). The pope’s statement in Bolivia was made in advance of his trip to North America where, he plans to give sainthood to Junipero Serra as the founder of nine of the 21 California missions which proved so deadly and destructive for the Native peoples of California.</p>
<p>As the representative of the Holy See, Pope Francis is the successor to previous popes, such as Nicholas V and Alexander VI, who created, on behalf of the Holy See, the institutional framework within which “the sins, offenses and crimes” to which Pope Francis referred were committed, including in the Spanish Catholic mission system.</p>
<p>We must not overlook a key fact: the edicts of various popes created the predatory framework of Christian empire (“emperii C<span style="line-height:1.6em;">hristiani</span><span style="line-height:1.6em;">”) and domination in the name of Christian “evangelism.” That framework became the basis for </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">centuries of death and devastation </em><span style="line-height:1.6em;">experienced by our original free nations and peoples (now typically called “indigenous”) throughout the western hemisphere and elsewhere.</span></p>
<p>What terminology did the Holy See use to create the framework found in the papal bulls or edicts? It was that terminology which provided the very basis for the sins, offenses, and crimes to which Pope Francis alluded. In the papal edict <em>Dum Diversas </em>of 1452, as one example, Pope Nicholas V authorized King Alfonso of Portugal, or his representatives, to sail to non-Christian lands, and “to invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue, all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to take away all their possessions and property.”</p>
<p>The king was further instructed to “convert” the lands of the non-Christians. In legal terms, the word “convert” can mean “to unlawfully or wrongfully take away that which rightfully belongs to another.” Accordingly, Pope Nicholas V then declared the king’s actions against the non-Christians to be “just and lawful.”</p>
<p>The above quoted terminology (invade, capture, vanquish, subdue, reduce to slavery, and convert the lands and property of the non-Christians) not only declared war on the non-Christian world. It also created a framework or paradigm of DOMINATION that continues to operate in plain sight while generally going unnoticed and unnamed.</p>
<p>In La Paz, Pope Francis was said to be addressing “the indigenous” peoples of Bolivia and elsewhere. What is the definition of “indigenous” at the United Nations? As stated in one definition, our nations and peoples are considered “indigenous” because we regard ourselves as “distinct from other sectors of society now prevailing.” To prevail is “to gain ascendancy,” and ascendancy is defined as “governing or controlling influence: DOMINATION.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged, 1993).</p>
<p>To be taken seriously, an “apology” or “begging of forgiveness” by Pope Francis, or any other pope, must be the basis for the papacy explicitly addressing the system of domination that the Holy See created and set into motion in the name of, “Him from whom empires, and dominations, and all good things proceed” (papal bull of May 3, 1493). That same system of domination is what ended up being spread by the Holy See and Christian monarchies, and missionaries such as Serra. To this day that system’s domination framework is still being used against our original nations and peoples.</p>
<p>This being the case, Pope Francis can show true courage and moral authority for the Catholic Church by taking a next logical step: Revoke those papal bulls that have resulted in the domination and dehumanization of our original nations and peoples. In 1993, the Indigenous Law Institute wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II calling on him to revoke the <em>Inter Caetera</em> papal bull of May 4, 1493 in representation of the entire series of papal documents. We wrote another to Pope Benedict XVI. We have maintained that campaign ever since the 1990s with the spiritual guidance and leadership of Birgil Kills Straight, an Elder and Traditional Head Man of the Oglala Lakota Nation, and with the solidarity of many Christian supporters throughout the world.</p>
<p>Given his statement of papal contrition in La Paz, Pope Francis has taken an important first step toward revoking the papal bulls of empire and domination. Yet, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. The pope has some choices to make regarding possible papal edicts. For the Church, a lot is riding on his decision.</p>
<p>Possible papal edict one: Pope Francis can make a clean break with the dominating tradition of the papal bulls by issuing an edict officially revoking those documents issued by his predecessors, and by refusing to canonize Junipero Serra. Possible papal edict two: Pope Francis can go through with his decision to bestow sainthood on Junipero Serra, and thereby choose to validate, legitimize, and sanctify the deadly trajectory of Christian empire and domination formed by the papal bulls. If he does, he will thereby demonstrate the emptiness of his expression of contrition. As a less likely papal “wild card,” he may even try a complete contradiction: Grant sainthood to Serra and revoke the papal bulls, which would be an attempt to simultaneously reject and embrace the domination tradition.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of </em>Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery<em> (Fulcrum, 2008). He is co-producer of the soon-to-be-released documentary movie, </em>The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code<em>, directed by Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota), with narration by Buffy Saint-Marie (Cree).</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Will Pope Francis Revoke Papal Bulls?</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Discrimination</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/spirituality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Spirituality</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/pope-francis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Pope Francis</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/papal-bull" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Papal Bull</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/catholic-church" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Catholic Church</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/holy-see" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Holy See</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Mon, 13 Jul 2015 20:40:17 +0000mazecyrus161057 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/13/pope-francis-takes-first-step-toward-revoking-papal-bulls#commentsMetaphors Matter: Toward the Liberation of Our Nationshttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/06/metaphors-matter-toward-liberation-our-nations
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">In his book </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">Metaphors We Live By </em><span style="line-height:1.6em;">(1980), philosopher Mark Johnson makes the point that we live our lives on the basis of metaphors and metaphorical patterns that we seldom notice. This is, in large part, because we are not taught to pay particular attention to metaphors or their patterns. We are not taught to understand the extent to which metaphors, and other mental processes, constitute the reality that we live and experience in our everyday lives.</span></p>
<p>It is a seldom noticed point that metaphor has been one of the United States’ primary means of making an entire world for our originally, and, I contend, still rightfully free nations. The words and ideas typically called “U.S. federal Indian law and policy” constitute an entire<em> world</em> of power relations that the United States has been able to build. Within that power structure, the United States has very thoughtfully built for us a “lower order” place of subordination where it desires to keep our nations and peoples in perpetuity. The United States has the aim of keeping us living on a permanent basis in conformity with its metaphorical patterning of domination and subordination, “Forever and ever Amen,” as the Christians say.</p>
<p>The world of semantic captivity that intellectuals working for the United States have worked so hard to construct for our nations and peoples is a metaphorical place of containment that has a corresponding physical reality. The world that we have managed to construct for ourselves is one that we have built within the confines of the world of captivity that the United States has built for us.</p>
<p>The United States government has justified its rapacious, deadly, and kleptomaniacal behavior toward our nations on the basis of dominating and dehumanizing metaphors that it lives by. The United States is an empire established on the basis of a founding metaphor of paternity (think “founding fathers”), a Great White Fatherhood that gave birth to its offspring of empire and domination. George Washington called it “our infant empire.” <em>E Pluribus Unum</em>—From Many One: One empire and domination under a concept of “God.”</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has been an extremely small but powerful group of humans engaged in an effort to build and maintain for our nations a metaphorical world of captivity. Our nations have been held within that semantic world for more than two hundred years now. Consequently, what Chief Justice John Marshall called “this, our wide-spreading empire” has used its carefully constructed idea-system to help itself to many trillions of dollars derived from our lands, territories, and resources. It has thereby made itself the wealthiest and most powerful empire on the planet, though it now seems to be showing signs of succumbing to the law of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics.</p>
<p>As a result of the United States’ cognitive use of metaphor and its rapacious idea-system, the world in which our nations and peoples now exist has epidemic levels of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, jail and prison incarceration rates, poverty, diabetes and other deadly diseases, as well as the lasting effects of genocidal efforts to eliminate our nations by destroying our languages, culture, ceremonies, and traditional child rearing practices, and by stealing our children and socializing them to the “American” norms of the dominating society.</p>
<p>Those and other indicators—such as the destruction of our sacred sites and significant and ceremonial places—are a direct result of the U.S. Supreme Court and other sectors of the U.S. government using destructive metaphors against on our nations, on an intergenerational basis. The result has been a world-destroying process for our nations, and a world-building and enriching process for the United States. Clearly, metaphors matter.</p>
<p>When deadly and destructive patterns of domination are euphemistically called “law” in order to give them the appearance of legitimacy, we have a responsibility to challenge, reject and correct that misuse of language. This raises the issue of another type of captivity that we need to take into account. It is the extent to which our minds have been taken over by metaphorical patterns of Christian supremacy as found in the idea-system euphemistically called “U.S. federal Indian law.”</p>
<p>The dominating society of the United States has manipulated our minds to such an extent, that more of our people than not now consider it perfectly normal to be “practicing” rather than challenging, the metaphorical system of white Christian <em>dominium</em> that is typically termed “U.S. federal Indian law.” We have professionals who are said to be “practicing” a form of “law” made up of metaphorical patterns that were designed by brilliant white men in the past, designed as a specific way to controlling, diminish, and—under the label of “termination” —to eliminate our originally and still rightfully free <em>nations</em>.</p>
<p>Those of our people who are “practicing” the dominating idea-patterns of the white man’s “law” simply ignore the twisted and religiously bigoted premise of that idea-system. They either don’t know it’s there, or else pretend it isn’t. For some reason, they never seem to question and challenge the basis upon which the United States holds our nations captive.</p>
<p>It is time to move beyond the usual platitudes about and become more precise about a doctrine of discovery and domination-premised “trust” relationship. Why is “trust” being used to label the domination-subordination premise of U.S. “federal Indian law,” which is the idea that the first white Christian power to locate non-Christian dark-skinned nations has the right to assume an “ascendancy” and “ultimate dominion” (domination) over those nations? (For evidence of this, see, for example, the 1954 U.S. legal brief in <em>Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States</em>).</p>
<p>We need to begin a deeper conversation about the correct basis for relations between our rightfully free nations and the United States. What does a <em>right</em> relationship between two nations look like, especially when one of the two has succeeded in maintaining for generations a metaphorical system of domination over the other that it refuses to let go of?</p>
<p>This raises the question: Is there such thing as a right of domination? Before answering, remember that domination results in dehumanization, which results in the trauma of what theologian Dr. Luis Rivera-Pagan has called “the absolute devaluation of one’s being.” This, then, leads to a further question: Is there such a thing as a right of dehumanization? Is there a right to engage in an absolute devaluation of someone’s or some nation’s very being? If so, then why is there no Universal Declaration on the Rights of Domination and Dehumanization?</p>
<p>And if there is no <em>right</em> of domination and dehumanization, then what is the international standard or convention which provides the basis for ending such patterns that are afflicting not just our nations and peoples but the planet? Not only is there no end in sight, the destructive patterns of domination seem more blatant than ever, especially on the eve of the United States’ goal of achieving Full Spectrum Dominance by the year 2020.</p>
<p>Having said all this, think of the extent to which the world’s political, social, and economic systems are presently predicated on metaphors and behavioral patterns of domination and dehumanization. Clearly, our struggle to liberate our original nations is planetary in scope. It is not merely for our own sakes that we must work to end the domination system, but for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and our future generations. We need to develop the metaphors and behavioral patterns by which to liberate ourselves.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of </em>Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery<em> (Fulcrum, 2008). He is co-producer of the soon-to-be-released documentary movie, </em>The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code<em>, directed by Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota), with narration by Buffy Saint-Marie (Cree).</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Toward the Liberation of Our Nations</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Culture</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/legal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Legal</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/tee-hit-ton-indians-v-united-states" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/federal-indian-law" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Federal Indian Law</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Mon, 06 Jul 2015 12:00:16 +0000mazecyrus160947 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/07/06/metaphors-matter-toward-liberation-our-nations#commentsRepetition, Patterning and Breaking the Codehttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/28/repetition-patterning-and-breaking-code
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">A repetitious pattern may be repeated to the point of being boring or tiring. Yet, obviously, not every pattern of repetition is tedious. When notes and chords are repeated in an artful manner, based on the rules of musical composition, we may end up with a melody or song that resonates with our emotions and takes us to new “heights.”</span></p>
<p>I mention repetition because of the extent to which my articles in recent years have been repetitiously focused on the idea of domination. I’ve used repetition in an effort to draw attention to a particular pattern. That being said, allow me to provide a few more examples I’ve come across which document the system of domination our nations and peoples are up against.</p>
<p>In the Foreword to Walter Echohawk’s book <em>In the Light of Justice</em> (2013), for instance, James Anaya writes of “the roots” of problems faced by “indigenous peoples.” These “roots,” he says, are “derived from similar <em>patterns of</em> <em>domination..</em>.” (p. VIII) (emphasis added). Karen Engle, in her book <em>The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development</em>, quotes Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s mention of “indigenous <em>opposition to domination</em>…” (p.13 )(emphasis added) A Spanish language book published in 1910 by Manuel Moreno y Sanz provides yet another example. It is entitled <em>Origenes de la Dominación </em>Española en América (<em>Origins of Spanish Domination in America</em>).</p>
<p>My many columns and articles about domination have been part of my effort to get people to notice and thereby “break” a seemingly hidden pattern or code. The fourth chapter of Alvin Toffler’s book <em>The Third Wave </em>(1980) is entitled “Breaking the Code,” and he writes: “Every civilization has a hidden code—a set of rules or principles that run through all its activities like a repeated design.” When accurately re-expressed, Toffler’s statement reads: “Every system of domination has a hidden code—a set of rules or principles of domination that run through all its activities like a repeated design.” (The 1823 <em>Johnson</em> v. <em>M’Intosh</em> ruling by the way, has a hidden code—a set of rules or principles of domination that run through its wording like a repeated design).</p>
<p>A key definition of the word “civilization” which I’ve mentioned many times in my columns matches Toffler’s insight: “civilization”: “the <em>forcing</em> of a cultural pattern on a population to whom it is foreign.” (emphasis added) Civilization is sometimes defined as “the process of being civilized.” For our original nations and peoples that process of supposedly being “made civilized” has been a matter of invading Christian Europeans working to compel us to live “under” and “within” an imposed idea-system of domination, sometimes called “ascendancy.” We can apply Toffler’s notion of “breaking the code” to our own efforts to more deeply understand the overall patterning of the system of domination and the resulting destruction experienced by our nations.</p>
<p>Something highly significant happens when we begin to notice and concentrate on “the hidden code of domination” which operates as a repeated (repeating) design like the repetition of 0s and 1s used for computer coding. (The Latin word <em>colere </em>is the root of “to colonize” and “to design”). We gain clarity as we learn how to apply theme of domination to our reading and writing as part of the process of decolonizing (liberating) our lives. Once we have brought the theme of domination to the surface level of awareness, and organized it into a readily comprehensible pattern, it is then possible to propose that we treat domination as <em>the central problem</em> that we need to solve and get rid of for those nations and peoples in the world called “indigenous.” Then, again, in my view we ought to be treating domination as <em>the issue</em> that needs to be solved and gotten rid of for the sake of all beings, all ecosystems, and waterways on the planet.</p>
<p>Domination is one nation or people <em>forcing</em> some other nation(s) or people(s) to live under an arbitrary form of control. Domination may also be defined as one person group, nation, or people being forced to live under the control of some other person, group, nation, or people. For us, what we are calling domination is the consequence of our nations and peoples having been (and still being) made to exist subject to a foreign cultural pattern in the name of “civilization” and “the state.”</p>
<p>Most people fail to notice that domination is both the basis and the context for the political system typically called “the state.” A state is premised on some nation, people, or elite group claiming a right of domination over entire ecosystems, and over nations or peoples called “indigenous.” Regarding the nature of “the state,” sociologist Max Weber said the following in his classic essay “Politics As A Vocation” (1917): “Like the political institutions preceding it, the state is a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e., considered legitimate) violence. If the state is to exist, the dominated must obey the [dominating] authority claimed by the powers that be.”</p>
<p>To become hyper-conscious of the pattern of domination is to see that pattern as ubiquitous in the dominating society in relation to peoples called “indigenous.” The word “civilization” immediately translates to “domination” in the context of indigenous peoples, and what is so commonly expressed as “The Conquest” by Western thinkers is simply another way of referring to the overall pattern of what is accurately called “The Domination.” Once we have recognized this, we are then able to accurately name the pattern of domination found in the titles of important books. Kirkpatrick Sale’s book <em>The Conquest of Paradise</em> (1990), for example, becomes <em>The Domination of Paradise</em>. Tzvetan Todorov’s <em>The Conquest of America</em> (1982) becomes <em>The Domination of America</em>. Lindsay Roberton’s book <em>Conquest By Law </em>(2005) becomes <em>Domination By Law</em>.</p>
<p>Our manner of interpreting what we read changes once we understand that “conquest” means <em>domination</em>. A sentence from Linda Parker’s <em>Native American Estate </em>(1987), provides a prime example: “Later the doctrine [of the Crusades] evolved to justify world conquest,” is accurately re-expressed: “Later the doctrine [of the Crusades] evolved to justify world domination.” (p. 2).</p>
<p>Another sentence of Parker’s reads: “By divine law the Christian imperial nations were superior and had the right to dominion and rule over non-Christian inhabitants and their territories.” This is accurately re-expressed as follows in terms of the domination code: “By divine law the Christian imperial nations were superior and had the right of dominate and rule over non-Christian inhabitants and their territories.” Phrases and words in that just that one sentence which contain the theme of domination include “Christian imperial nations,” “superior,” “dominion” and “rule over.”</p>
<p>Historical accounts of the domination of the original nations and peoples of our part of the planet, by the monarchies of Western Christendom, use a wide variety of euphemistic phrases and words to repeat the same theme of domination over and over again. Examples include: “just war,” “imperial nations,” “forced conversion” “invade,” “capture, “vanquish” “wars of conquest,” “a natural right to conquer Indians, use their labor, and exploit their lands,” “prevailed,” “superiority of Christian nations over uncivilized non-Christian nations,” “Aristotle’s theory of slavery,” and so forth.</p>
<p>Federal Indian law and policy is a language and idea system predicated on the U.S.’s domination of our nations and peoples. Yet we have been conditioned to habitually use variety of euphemisms (positive sounding words for negative things) that direct our attention away from the phenomenon of domination and resulting dehumanization. It’s far past time to learn how to break the code and read the underlying idea-system of domination that has been used against our nations for more than two centuries by the United States and other countries. If Professor Anaya is correct and “the roots” of the problems faced by “indigenous peoples” are “derived from similar patterns of domination,” then let’s name and address those patterns of domination.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of </em>Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery<em> (Fulcrum, 2008). He is co-producer of the soon-to-be-released documentary movie, </em>The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code<em>, directed by Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota), with narration by Buffy Saint-Marie (Cree).</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Repetition, Patterns, Breaking the Code</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Culture</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Sun, 28 Jun 2015 12:00:31 +0000mazecyrus160860 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/28/repetition-patterning-and-breaking-code#comments5 ICTMN Writers Participate at Indigenous Studies Conferencehttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/20/5-ictmn-writers-participate-indigenous-studies-conference-160788
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Five of ICTMN’s writers participated in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association’s annual conference this year.</span></p></div></div></div>Sat, 20 Jun 2015 14:00:00 +0000leeanne160788 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/20/5-ictmn-writers-participate-indigenous-studies-conference-160788#commentsPoetics, Politics and U.S. federal Indian Lawhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/15/poetics-politics-and-us-federal-indian-law
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I recently came across the book <em>Writing the Social Text</em>: <em>Poetics and Politics in Social Science Discourse</em> (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1992), edited by Richard H. Brown. In his chapter “Poetics, Politics, and Truth,” Professor Brown talks about the way in which “the positivist account” of knowledge “has eroded in recent decades” (p. 4).</p>
<p>For more than a century, says Brown, “most Western thinkers held that knowledge could be gained with certainty through empirical observations and logical deductions.” He continues:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">In their view, there is a world of objective facts governed by causal laws. The discovery of these causal laws permits the theorist to map reality accurately for purposes of prediction and control. Thus, reality was seen as independent of the thinker, who through systematic observation may develop testable propositions. Those propositions that survive empirical tests and are able to predict events come to constitute the body of knowledge.</p>
<p>However, an alternative view gradually began to develop. As Brown puts it: “In this alternative view, theories do not mirror reality; they are products of human artifice, which themselves shape what we take as real and true.” To frame theory as a human artifice is to posit that a given theory is an artistic creation of the theory-maker(s). In this regard, Brown mentions a “conception of reality as molded through [human] discourse.” It is, he points out, “a return of rhetoric,” which the Greeks defined as the art of persuasion.</p>
<p>The above discussion leads to a key suggestion: The ideas typically called “U.S. federal Indian law and policy” are the result of the colonizers using language to maintain a “conception of reality” constructed by elite white men of the past. It was their job to use ideas and arguments to build a reality system in which the United States is conceived of as the top-dog, existing in a dominating position in relation to a sub-order reality that those elite white men constructed for the captivity of our original nations. It was the goal of the United States to create a system of persuasion, a tightly structured system of arguments, that would be passed from one generation to the next, and thereby prove most useful and profitable to the United States of America by working to rob our nations of our free existence and our territories and resources.</p>
<p>The ideas and arguments typically called U.S. federal Indian law and policy are the result of that persuasive use of human language in an effort to disempower our original nations while empowering the United States. Thus, it stands to reason that persuasion and persuasive skills are of great importance for every original nation, for every original nation leader, and for everyone who advocates on behalf of an original nation. Despite this, how often does the importance of rhetoric (persuasion) get identified as critically importance for our nations? Seldom if at all, is about right.</p>
<p>The art of persuasion is necessary for developing arguments and for critiquing the arguments of our opponents. Every one of our nations and every one of our leaders must deal on a daily basis with the arguments put forward by an opposing side. The colonizing society’s use of arguments against our nations is incessant and never-ending. Yet, how much time do we spend analyzing and critiquing the arguments of other side, and developing our own responses?</p>
<p>Law and politics are rhetorical (persuasive) through and through. Given that fact, how can we effectively deal with the ideas and arguments that constitute U.S. federal Indian law and policy without understanding the art of persuasion and continually working to developing and improve our skills in that discipline? Studying federal Indian law as an expression of “<em>their</em> law” is not the same as studying federal Indian law as an expression of “rhetoric” (persuasive strategy) <em>from our own perspective</em>. One reason for framing the dominating society as dominating is because of its adroit use of persuasion (rhetoric) in ways that maintain the mental image of the United States as existing <em>over the top of</em> our originally and still rightfully free nations and our territories.</p>
<p>Much of what our nations and peoples have learned to treat and experience as “reality,” was first constructed by elite white men in the past on the basis of persuasive arguments made about our existence by men and women of the colonizing society. Gradually, over a period of many generations, more and more of our own people have begun to accept the very ideas which our ancestors steadfastly opposed. More and more ideas that our people at one time considered false have come to be accepted as true by more and more of our people.</p>
<p>What’s an example of our people accepting as “true” the white man’s persuasive discourse? One such example is the idea that “the rights” of our nations “to complete sovereignty, as independent nations” were “diminished” by a supposed right of domination (“ultimate dominion”) resulting from Christian discovery. The lie of such a “diminishment,” which was first constructed by Chief Justice Marshall for the U.S. Supreme Court, has seldom if ever been specifically challenged by our own people, and is never challenged by the attorneys working for our nations. Why? The lie of such a “diminishment” of our right to a free existence, based on a claim of “discovery” by “Christian people” of non-Christians’ lands, has taken on the appearance of a persuasive “reality” that remains unnoticed, and, goes mostly unchallenged.</p>
<p>Much of the rhetoric of the dominating society has been developed by U.S. courts in a rarified and elite atmosphere, without us ever having developed a powerful and effective counter argument. The domination premised society of international states, has developed an entire body of arguments in support of their claimed right to dominate of our nations. It is a body of arguments that has been given the appearance of being well beyond our reach and control.</p>
<p>Chief Justice Marshall contributed to this attitude when he wrote in the <em>Cherokee Nation</em> v. <em>Georgia </em>decision of 1831, “We assert a title to their lands independent of their will.” This statement was based on an argument that Marshall created by means of the <em>Johnson</em> v. <em>M’Intosh</em> ruling: “We assert a right of domination independent of their will.” So what’s <em>our </em>response? And why has a response not forthcoming from the leadership of the nations of Great Turtle Island and other original nations?If we were to create a counter-argument to challenge the claimed right of domination by the United States, or Canada, or New Zealand, or Australia, or any other state of domination, what would that counter-argument be? Here’s one for starters: “You argue that your ancestors ‘discovered’ and ritually claimed control over our ancestors and over the vast homelands and territories of our nations? And you further argue that this occurred as a result of permission granted by some foreign and immigrant monarch living thousands of miles away from our nations? And you also argue that you have inherited a right of domination as a precedent bequeathed by your ancestors to use against our nations forever? Well, we all know your ancestors were nothing but law breakers of our Original Law systems. Their wrongful assertions of a right of domination against our nations and our ancestors are null and void. Those wrongful assertions were premised on a violation of our Original Law systems. There is no such thing as <em>a right</em> of domination, especially one asserted by the nations of Christendom against our non-Christian nations on the basis of Christianity.”</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008), and a producer of the about to be released documentary movie The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code, directed and produced by Sheldon Wolfchild (Dakota).</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Poetics, Politics and U.S. Indian Law</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/legal" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Legal</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/richard-h-brown" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Richard H. Brown</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/thurgood-marshall" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Thurgood Marshall</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Mon, 15 Jun 2015 12:00:17 +0000mazecyrus160670 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/15/poetics-politics-and-us-federal-indian-law#commentsThe Pioneer Mother Statue and the 'Conquering Peace'http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/06/pioneer-mother-statue-and-conquering-peace
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>At the University of Oregon (U of O), just south of the administration building, amidst the beautiful green scenery of the campus, is a bronze statue, “The Pioneer Mother.” On the front panel of the statue’s pedestal is the Latin word “PAX” (“Peace”). As a student, I read the text enscribed on the back of the statue’s base. It is some text from a letter written by Burt Brown Barker in honor of his mother, Elvira Brown Barker who traveled with her family across the Oregon Trail in the 19th century when she was a young girl.</p>
<p>While recently visiting the U of O campus, I once again read Brown’s acknowledgement to “my mother Elvira Brown Barker, a pioneer of 1847…” The end of the text reads: “but to us there lives that spirit of conquering peace which I wish posterity to remember.” Why a “conquering peace?” Because, in the context of the expansion of the American empire, a “pioneer” is typically defined as “a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area.” A pioneer is an agent part of what is called the “conquering” colonial expansion, of an empire helping itself to the lands and territories of original nations.</p>
<p>Brown’s phrase “conquering peace” was taken from a letter that he wrote while he was planning for such a commemorative statue. Brown eventually used that letter to convince the sculptor, A. Phimister Proctor, to create The Pioneer Mother statue. Elsewhere in his letter Brown expressed his ideal image of a pioneer mother, part of which states: “She was a woman born into life with all it has of labor and of pain; but she chose to multiply these as a helpmeet [sic] in blazing the westward trail that the course of empire might make its way, as the God of civilization has ordained.” In Brown’s view, the God of the Bible ordained that the destiny of “God’s empire” be manifested. Thus, the phrase “Manifest Destiny.”</p>
<p>The Oregon territory was established as part of the Westward expansion of the American empire that the founders of the United States had envisioned. Pioneers are the colonizers of a given geographical area which is new to them. That geographical area is new to the invading and colonizing society which expands its control by forcibly imposing its own foreign cultural pattern on the nations existing in there. This is commonly termed the process of “civilization.”</p>
<p>From the viewpoint of the original nations overrun by the trajectory of empire, the Pioneer Mother is a colonizing mother. From the self-congratulatory viewpoint of the colonizing society, she is a Conquering Mother. From an original nations’ viewpoint, she is the Mother of a system of Domination; the accuracy of this statement is made evident by Burt Barker’s phrase “conquering peace.” As the Roman historian Tacitus said of the Romans’ expansion of their “conquering” domination: “They create a desert and call it peace.”</p>
<p>In his letter, Brown envisioned a future time when, “The Indian and his arrows are but fireside tales dear to her posterity; the flintlock hangs rusted on the wall; the wild beast and his terror have long since given way to the protection of civilization.” Notice how Brown managed to combine the concepts “Indian,” “arrows,” “wild beast,” “terror,” and “civilization” all in the same sentence. The underlying message seems clear. “Civilization” (“the forcing of a cultural pattern on a population to whom it is foreign,” Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary) is portrayed as the antidote to Indians, wild beasts, and terror.</p>
<p>When The Pioneer Mother statue was dedicated at the University of Oregon campus, C. L. Hart—Chairman of the State Board of Education—made some remarks which are found in the Special Collections at the Uof O Knight Library (UA Ref 4 Box 78). Among other things, Hart also invoked the theme of “terror” and “savages” with the following:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">The Pioneer Mother exemplifies the real genius of the west—the ages of the Nation. Coming to the Great West the Pioneer Mother risked every possible danger including cold, hunger and even death at the hands of savage Indians.</p>
<p>To the north of the University of Oregon administration building, directly in line with The Pioneer Mother statue, is the bronze statue of The Pioneer, which was also made by Proctor and modeled after a nineteenth century trapper. In the Special Collections at the UofO Knight Library (UA Ref 4 Box 13) we find a booklet of speeches delivered during The Pioneer statue dedication on May 22, 1919.</p>
<p>In his opening remarks, University of Oregon President Campbell spoke of “this splendid memorial of all the dreams, hopes, and ambitions, of all the strength, courage, and self-sacrifice of the noble men and women who laid firmly in education and religion the foundations of a great future civilization.”</p>
<p>“The Honorable R. A. Booth of Eugene” delivered a talk entitled, “The Outlook from the End of the Trail,” in which he said: “Today we are not much interested in the cause that determined the course of empire…” Thus did Booth confirm that it was the American empire that the Oregon Trail was expanding. He then turned to an Old Testament religious analogy:</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">It is not difficult to see in the Mayflower the new Ark-of-the-Covenant and as easy to believe that whatever it contained that was holy, true, and progressive, was transplanted to the broad fields of the West when Pittsburgh became the new Plymouth. The unison of the tramp, tramp of the thousands of feet that crossed the Alleghanies extended the trail until it led and spread over Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri…(p. 12)</p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in;">But there was still another stride to be taken before the continent was crossed. Then came the sons and daughters from the states just named, not to make the western boundaries of the world, but to find, claim and dedicate them [those states]. These were the Oregon Pioneers, and it was they and their influence and their children that planted here...a loyalty to country and to unselfish devotion to human interests that has been so frequently expressed…(pp. 12-13)</p>
<p>I am willing that these discoverers may be listed among the Saints… (p. 13)</p>
<p>Colonizers listed among the Saints. How interesting, then, that Pope Francis and the Vatican are about to list the name of Junipero Serra, a Catholic colonizer, among the Catholic saints. The pope is doing so in the name of evangelistic battle against heathendom and in celebration of the westward course of the Christian empire (<em>imperii christiani</em>).</p>
<p>Pope Francis and the Holy See are giving sainthood to Serra for being among the vanguard who worked at chaining Indian lands for the Roman Catholic Spanish Empire by creating a “chain” of missions that could be used for reducing the heathen barbarous nations (“<em>barbarae nationes</em>”). Serra, on behalf of the Holy See, marched forward in the name of a Catholic Pioneer Mother, the Mother Mary, “La Conquistadora.” Today, in 2015, the pope and the Vatican are celebrating Serra’s deadly legacy in an effort to reinvigorate their imperial, evangelical enterprise.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008). He has been studying U.S. federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mother Statue &amp; &#039;Conquering Peace&#039;</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/spirituality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Spirituality</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/colonization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Colonization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/pope-francis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Pope Francis</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/oregon-trail" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Oregon Trail</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Sat, 06 Jun 2015 12:00:35 +0000mazecyrus160625 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/06/06/pioneer-mother-statue-and-conquering-peace#commentsMaintaining U.S. Status Quo in Name of 'Enhanced Participation' at UNhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/25/maintaining-us-status-quo-name-enhanced-participation-un
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>In the 1823 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Johnson and Graham’s <em>Lessee v. M’Intosh</em>, Chief Justice Marshall made a statement on behalf of a unanimous court that the United States is still applying to our original nations and peoples one hundred and ninety two years later.</p>
<p>Here’s my paraphrase of Marshall’s statement for the Supreme Court: It may appear “extravagant” for the United States to pretend to convert the discovery of an inhabited country into a claimed right of domination (Marshall used the term “conquest”). Nonetheless, if such a “pretension” of a right of domination has been asserted and then sustained, “if a country has been acquired and held under it,” “if the property of the great mass of the community depends on it,” that “pretension” of a right of domination “becomes the law of land and cannot be questioned.”</p>
<p>The fact that Marshall used the word “conquest” instead of the phrase “right of domination” on behalf of a unanimous Court is immaterial to the point I’m making here. After all, the only way for one nation or people to pretend to “convert” “discovery” into “conquest” and use it against another nation or people is by imposing an unjust reign of domination on that other nation or people.</p>
<p>Domination results in the dehumanization of the nation or people being compelled into subjection. Just think of the dehumanizing acts of domination such as the Gdnattenhütten Massacre, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Bear Creek Massacre, the Spanish Catholic Mission System of Death, the Trail of Tears that resulted in the dehumanizing deaths of thousands of the children, women, and men of the Cherokee Nation. Think of the bloody bodies of slain Hunkpapa ancestors lying in the bloody snow at the Wounded Knee Massacre, and on and on.</p>
<p>Just think of all the dominating and dehumanizing (and, yes, genocidal) events that, for more than five centuries, have been inflicted on our nations and peoples over the entirety of this vast continent, and across the width and breadth of the entire hemisphere. We see instance after instance of our nations being dominated and dehumanized by being deprived of the ability to live on our own lands, in our own territories, in a manner of our own choosing, free from the imposition of arbitrary control by an invading nation or state of domination.</p>
<p>This being the case, why is it that the accurate words <em>domination</em> and <em>dehumanization</em> are not typically used by non-Native historians when they recount our history? Based on the above examples, we are able to draw the accurate inference that the U.S. federal Indian law and policy system is a forcibly imposed system resulting from more than two centuries of domination and dehumanization of our nations by the United States. One result of the aforementioned history is the U.S. system of federal recognition of “Indian tribes,” which are political entities that the U.S. Supreme Court in <em>Michigan </em>v. <em>Bay Mills Indian Community</em> recently declared to exist in “subjection” to or “subject to” U.S. “plenary power.”</p>
<p>The United States government recently made a statement at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) which used the U.S. system of federally recognized tribes as a frame of reference. The statement was delivered on behalf of the United States on April 20, 2015 by Ms. Ann Marie Bledsoe Downes, an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, who also happens to be an attorney within the system of U.S. law and U.S. federal Indian law.</p>
<p>That April 20 statement by the United States says that the U.S. government “supports enhanced participation for representatives of <em>its</em> federal recognized tribes, which have a nation to nation relationship with the United States.” (emphasis added) “Its” tribes? Really? In English grammar, the word “its” is a possessive. Thus, on the world stage the United States has officially characterized “federally recognized tribes,” as “belonging to” the United States as U.S. “possessions.” Such terminology is clear evidence of the domination system.</p>
<p>The idea-system of “tribes” and “domestic dependent nations,” which the U.S. deems to exist “in subjection” to the U.S., is an idea-system which the United States uses against our originally and still rightfully free and independent nations and peoples. Given that there is no such thing as “<em>a right</em> of domination,” it is sensible to argue that our nations continue to be and shall forever be <em>rightfully</em> free and independent of the U.S. government’s unjust system of domination and dehumanization. Certainly Indian leaders and advocates have the capacity to argue that the United States has never had the right to impose its system of domination on our nations. Whether they will decide to make that argument, however, remains to be seen.</p>
<p>This brings us to the catch behind the U.S. April 20 statement at the United Nations: <em>If</em> the United States can make it seem to the world community that we have “freely consented” to the federal Indian law and policy system (the U.S. system of domination), then the U.S. can tell the world that it’s U.S. federal Indian law and policy system is not being imposed on us <em>against our will</em> based on domination. It can say that we have freely conceded to that system through an exercise of our own “free, prior, and informed consent.”</p>
<p>Without a doubt, this is the strategy being used by the United States in the UN at this time. The United States is working to incorporate into the United Nations’ system-wide action plan, the U.S. federal Indian law and policy system of “subjection.” How ironic that the United States is doing this in the name of “implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”</p>
<p>The United States knows that if it can weave U.S. federal Indian law and policy into the UN as a global model for “Indigenous peoples,” it will have made domestic U.S. federal Indian law and policy an <em>international norm</em>. The UN’s “system-wide action plan,” which is the result of the outcome document produced by the UN high level plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly last September, provides the U.S. with this opening. Unfortunately, some of the so-called Indigenous peoples’ advocates are falling in line by going along with the U.S. strategy.</p>
<p>Something is critically wrong when the Indian people who claim to be using the international arena to <em>create reform</em>, as a means of solving the myriad problems facing our nations, advocate in favor of institutionalizing in the United Nations and thereby internationalizing the very same U.S. system that has resulted in the problems they purport to be fighting against. The problems that our nations face on a daily basis cannot be ended by retaining the U.S. conceptual system of domination that has caused those problems and maintains them.</p>
<p>It is disingenuous for the U.S. to claim that it is working to give “tribes” an “enhanced participation” in the UN, when what it actually doing is replicating in the context of the United Nations the very same problem-producing system of domination that the U.S. has been using against our nations and peoples for more than two centuries. That is not reform. It is merely a clever means of the U.S. maintaining its status quo in the name of “implementing” the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is the co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. He has been researching and writing about U.S. federal Indian law and policy and international law since the early 1980s.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Maintaining U.S. Status Quo at UN</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/government" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Government</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/politics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Politics</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/wounded-knee-massacre" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Wounded Knee Massacre</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/cherokee" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cherokee</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/united-nations-permanent-forum-indigenous-issues" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/unpfii" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">UNPFII</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/un-declaration-rights-indigenous-peoples-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Mon, 25 May 2015 12:00:19 +0000mazecyrus160442 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/25/maintaining-us-status-quo-name-enhanced-participation-un#commentsThinking About ‘Tribes’http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/05/thinking-about-tribes
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">In the first chapter of </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">The Evolution of Physics </em><span style="line-height:1.6em;">(1938), Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld say they are focused on “the adventurous search for knowledge of the physical world,” and that they are “chiefly concerned with the role of thoughts and ideas.” Searching for knowledge of the “physical world” leads to an intriguing question: “Do ‘Indian’ ‘tribes’ </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">physically</em><span style="line-height:1.6em;"> exist “in” a </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">physical</em><span style="line-height:1.6em;"> world external to and independent of the language system used to express the idea of “tribes?” Were there “tribes” existing here in our part of the world before the Christian Europeans invasively arrived with that word? The answer is “no.”</span></p>
<p>Before Colonization (B.C.) our ancestors were existing here on Great Turtle Island in worlds and realities of their own making, with experiences that were the result of our own languages and our own words that were woven into our free and independent existence; free and independent of Christian European colonization and domination. The word “tribe” and the associative ideas that accompany that word were necessary to create the mental (cognitive) experience of a “tribe.”</p>
<p>“Tribes” do not exist as a feature of the <em>physical</em> world, but as a result of the word and idea of “tribe” and “tribes” being mentally projected onto and applied to certain groupings of humans. Once that word and the mental associations that go with it have been established as an ongoing and unquestioned habit, a habit shared in common with others, no one bothers to ask whether that word makes sense, or if there is a downside to the use of that word. It becomes treated in everyday life as simply a “natural” feature of the world of everyday experience. Once the people have become accustomed to that idea and that wording, it is <em>as if </em>the “tribe” were <em>physically</em> existing, independent of our minds, of the word itself, and of the English language.</p>
<p>It is my contention that we experience our lives in terms of the words and mental concepts “tribe,” and “tribes,” and “tribal” as a direct result of us having become mentally conditioned and adapted to the colonizing language of English. It is a product of colonization (domination), which means that decolonization (liberation) ought to involve an effort to shift our words and our use of language in a manner that enables us to construct the mental and physical reality we desire to experience. But what is the reality we desire to experience? And what are the obstacles in the way of achieving that desired state? If “tribe,” “tribes,” and “tribal” are self-subordinating and self-reducing, then what is the sensible rationale for continuing to self-identify with such politically subordinating and diminishing terms?</p>
<p>In <em>Johnson </em>v. <em>M’Intosh</em>, Chief Justice John Marshall said that the U.S. Supreme Court was going to use a pretension (something pretended) as the basis of its ruling about a U.S. right of domination. Based on the political and economic needs of the United States, he said that pretension of a U.S. right of domination over Indian nations would be regarded as “the law of the land,” and as something not to be questioned. What he was writing about, though, is the way in which human reality gets constructed and maintained.</p>
<p>Marshall, being the sharp operator that he was—aligned with the intellectually astute elite operating at the highest levels of the United States government—understood one thing very well. Given a long enough period of time, everyone would lose sight of the fact that they had started out with a <em>pretend reality </em>of Indian domination and subordination. The ideas that began by being pretended would begin to be experienced by later generations (such as ourselves) <em>as if</em> it were a <em>physical</em> fact, and as if <em>physically</em> existing. Marshall knew that once that had happened, once the pretended ideas had been “solidified,” so to speak, then those ideas would take on the false appearance of being part of an unquestioned and unquestionable physical reality.</p>
<p>That is where we are today. However as a product of the white man’s mind and mental processes, the Supreme Court’s pretension in Johnson v. M’Intosh has been and continues to be open to question and challenge from our original free and independent viewpoint. It is a matter of us acting on that truism and not acting as if we must passively accept the words and ideas of the colonizers that have been metaphorically “handed down to us from on high.”</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008). He has been studying U.S. federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Thinking About ‘Tribes’</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/culture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Culture</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/colonization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Colonization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/us-supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">U.S. Supreme Court</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steve-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steve Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Tue, 05 May 2015 12:00:11 +0000mazecyrus160250 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/05/thinking-about-tribes#comments